


The Nightmare Room

by kryptidkat



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, all the bro feels, melodramatic emo drivel tbh, smoking (dont do drugs kids), suicide attempt? sort of? implied?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 11,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptidkat/pseuds/kryptidkat
Summary: Your fave dysfunctional killjoy siblings are back, this time in an overdramatic angst piece where the plot conflict would be instantly fixed if they weren’t emotionally stunted two year olds who don’t talk to each other, but where’s the fun in that?





	1. Kobra

Under an ink-black sky Kobra paced the diner roof, the smoke from the cigarette half-forgotten in his hand hanging around him like a fog. When it was this quiet, you had to keep moving. The silence tonight was unsettling. No screaming so far. Weird, the things you came to expect. What you got used to.

He stood still and let his eyes close briefly.

Insomnia was bad, but the nightmares were worse.

How much longer? An hour? Two?

It was good to get outside. The rainy season was always welcome to begin with – the dance parties, the mudfights, the blessed feeling of the dust that permeated everything washing away as that first storm soaked you to the skin. The flooding was not so welcome. Neither was the miserable, damp huddle the celebrations always degenerated into after the first week. No one could really go anywhere. Sometimes roads washed out and even lightning strikes weren’t unheard of, but mostly it was just _wet_ , and the diner was the only dry place they had to wait it out.

They might have finally seen the last of the rains. The surface of the ground was already dry even though the clouds only cleared yesterday.

He remembered his cigarette (how many had he gone through? Ghoul was gonna murder him if there weren’t any left) and took another drag.

Some nights, the stars were beautiful enough to distract him.

Or sometimes Cherri would be broadcasting, wherever he was. Kobra almost always checked the radio, turning the volume down low so he wouldn’t disturb the others, hoping to hear that husky soft voice rambling away. Cherri would talk about anything – read poetry from a book he scavenged or Bible passages or funny listings in old newspaper classifieds or muse over whatever philosophical nonsense came into his head. Cherri knew what it was like. He would go on for hours and hours, til dawn broke. In case anyone out there needed a voice to coax them through the night.

Tonight, it was just static.

Time crawled. His cigarette stub winked out.

There was quiet, and there was too quiet. It made the night all around him go thick and muted and weird. Like running through water. Like running in a nightmare.

Keep running. It was the only thing anybody ever said out here.

No one ever told you what to do when you were forced to stop.

The onslaught of throbbing lights, the screaming crowds, the roar of motors and gunshots and explosions – it drowned out everything. He was grateful for that. Pathetically grateful. Until he couldn’t take the flood of sensation and emotions anymore. He stayed as long as he could, even then, until it finally sent him retreating into the silence, into the dark. But what was waiting for him there sent him running back to the noise and the lights before the loud, helpless feeling ever really stopped, so he wouldn’t fall into it and not be able to climb back out.

It was catching up to him now. The weight in his chest was getting worse, the familiar dread creeping into his lungs. He wracked his brain. There was nothing he could do, no attacking his punching bags or blasting music or anything to block it out. Nothing loud. The others got little enough rest as it was. He needed a distraction – anything to keep it at bay. Just for a few more hours.

A crash from below made him start involuntarily. Shuffling noises. A door slammed.

Kobra frowned. No one had come out of the diner. He listened. Nothing.

If it was the Girl…

Kobra climbed down from the roof and ducked inside.

All was dark. He scanned the common area, even glancing under the tables. No one.

Faint light was spilling from the crack under the mop closet door at the end of the hall. Weird. He’d forgotten there even was a door there. It was always locked, and none of them had bothered trying to get inside. Where’d she find the key?

He went over and eased the door open.

“Kobra!” Party jerked around violently, flinging red everywhere. “What the –“

“Holy –” Kobra lowered his instinctively raised fists. Blood. There was blood on everything. “Party…”

His brother stood frozen, panting, wild-eyed.

There was a brush in his hand.

Paint. A choked noise of relief escaped Kobra. “Dude, you scared the living…”

A chill ran down his spine. The canvas. He barely had time to register it – the sprawled figure, neck at a horrible angle, yellow and more red, red everywhe –

Party lunged at him. “Don’t!”

Kobra stumbled back. He couldn’t breathe. “What. In the name of – ”

There were more of them, all over the walls.

“Kobra, it’s – ”

Head reeling, Kobra made blindly for the nearest exit and ran smack into Jet as he emerged from the other room, roused by the commotion.

“Whoa, K, where are you –”

Kobra shouldered past him, snatched up his keys, and stormed out.

“Helmet!” Jet yelled after him. Kobra didn’t stop.


	2. Party

Party slammed the closet door so hard the dishes in the kitchen rattled. His brush fell from his grasp. Rolled across the floor, trailing paint. A motorcycle engine roared, died, roared again, and faded into the distance. He pressed stained hands to his mouth, trying to swallow back the panic. He couldn’t get Kobra’s stricken face out of his head. The eyes on the walls bored straight through him, accusing, unseeing. He never, ever meant…

He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. Don’t think. Think about purple sunsets, think about strobes and glitter and thumping bass, think about the way the soft light outside right now was probably playing on the colored glass bottle bits the Girl had strung in the windows…

This wasn’t real. Everything was fine.

By the time he composed himself enough to slip from the closet, the common room was deserted. Jet had gone back to bed. Kobra’s good luck helmet smiled at Party from the corner by the door.

He locked the closet with steady hands. And the phantoms were gone, leaving a hollow, blank space where they had been.

Party went to the kitchen and put on a pot of water. He’d be back soon. He always was, and he’d be hopping mad if there wasn’t fresh coffee – he guarded his first cup of the day with his life, and Destroya help anyone who got between him and it.

Everything was fine.


	3. Kobra

The sunrise was too red for comfort. Kobra gunned it in the opposite direction, vision blurred underneath the sunglasses he’d jammed on, racing against the pink-stained desert crawling up behind him. The wind battered his face, roaring past his ears, and he wished it could drown it all out. The stars winked out ahead of him, one by one, until the last was gone. He felt the sun’s heat on his back and opened the throttle further. How long had he been dreaming? This was the nightmare, right?

There was no mistaking the shock of blond hair, that jacket. It was the same in all of them, all horribly the same and each horribly different. Sprawled limp and alone on bloodspattered sand. Hanging from Korse’s white, bony hands. Reaching out from the canvas, a leering drac mask pulled over his head. A mangled wreck of flesh and metal in a motorcycle crash –

Kobra yanked on the handlebars and skidded to a stop beside the battered highway. He lurched off the bike.

He was dead in every single one of them. Dead every way imaginable.

Oh no. It was all over him. Suddenly manic, he scrabbled for handfuls of sand and scrubbed his skin feverishly where the paint had splattered.

When the stains were finally gone, he slumped back against his motorcycle.

Now he was _actually_ bleeding. Shiny. Detachedly he watched the tiny beads of blood ooze from the raw patches of skin. He wasn’t dreaming. ~~~~

What was wrong with his brother? Was he sick? Was he insane? What could possess him to do such a thing, locked away where he thought no one would find him? The heat, the radiation, the drinking and the raids and fighting and who knew what else, had it all finally driven Party mad?

None of it made any sense. He’d been acting perfectly normal, whatever normal was for Party, and the number of them, covering every wall…how long had it been going on? Something wasn’t right, there had to be a rational explanation for this. But it was all right there, plainer than the harsh desert sun: Party _had_ to have snapped. Or –

Kobra’s stomach twisted as the truth sank its teeth into him. The truth he’d never had proof of before. Just the crawling, nagging suspicions, so faint he had always managed to ignore them. They had lurked at the edge of his vision so long and now, cast into such harsh, logical light, he could finally see their cruel reality.

It was sinking in, leaving only a numb static, threatening to white out the whole desert, the world looming and shrinking around him, white as a BL/Ind examination room wall.


	4. Then

 

“I’m here, I’m here! Stop, bro, hey.” My brother’s voice cut through the school nurses’ shouting, but my head still rang and the fear and anger and adrenaline were all jumbled up inside me so strong I could taste it and their cold, grasping hands were all over me, they were going to strap me down –

I threw them off, and before they could grab me again, Party – no, not Party then, just my brother – was there between me and them, hands out placatingly. “I’ll make him take them. They sent me. Please. Just lemme talk to him.”

The tall and pale-eyed head nurse shut his mouth in a tight, disapproving line, but he motioned for the other two nurses to step outside with him.

My brother eased the door shut and the room went taut with silence. I threw himself into a chair farthest away from the pills on the counter and sat there trembling, unable to look at him.

 “What was it this time?” he asked me wearily.

Did it matter? I didn’t respond. He was still using that mild, even voice, the one he’d used on the nurses, the one he tried to use all the time even when they were alone just in case anyone was listening. I studied the wall instead, to distract myself from the pulse still hammering in my wrists and so I wouldn’t have to see his disappointment. I knew this wall far too well. The greyish Better Living poster, most likely hung up there before I was born. A faint smudge on the white paint beside it that had been there almost as long. And a newer dent. Probably from my fist, last week.

I wondered wretchedly for the millionth time how he could possibly do it, be so model-citizeny and never get so helplessly out of control and have even more pills forced down his throat for it, pills that made the world grey and fuzzy for days. Sure, he hated the meds as much as I did and would do anything to stay on the minimum doses. Only difference was, he was actually capable of hiding himself so far down the doctors couldn’t find him. He slipped sometimes, rare flashes of anger or excitement or humor before he caught himself. It didn’t happen much anymore. I missed that.

 “What is wrong with you!” My brother exploded, raking a hand through his short brown hair. “If you’d behave, they wouldn’t make you take these! Do you even try?”

Okay, maybe I didn’t miss it so much. “I – ”

“You can’t keep doing this! They’ve sent kids to programming for less!”

Silence again.

“I…I heard ‘em talking,” I told the wall, dully. “Last year. They’ve been…planning to transfer me. To the Scarecrow project.”

He took a sharp breath. “What – you? Why?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Something in my psych evals. I dunno.”

“You should have told me,” he said softly. “Man, you should have told me.”

I waited for him to start yelling again, but he didn’t say anything else.

The doctors’ murmured exchange had haunted me ever since I’d overheard it. The dracs we saw on patrol sometimes, that was different. It was no secret they weren’t…people. Not anymore. Just animated bodies. A fitting sentence for criminals that couldn’t be redeemed by programming, they said. Those were creepy enough, but somehow the Scarecrows were worse. I’d only seen one a few times. They were the ones that got sent out after the Most Wanteds. Terrorists. Stuff like that. I’d heard the rumors – that they were ruthlessly trained, biologically modified, calculating, heartless, a necessary weapon in the post-war world. But surely, surely the rumors were more ghost story than fact…?

I didn’t know, I didn’t know what they wanted me for and they were gonna force me into it and what if it was awful or worse, what if their stupid evaluations were right and I was good at it and I enjoyed–

“Well, whatever you heard, if you keep doing this they’ll change their minds!” My brother suddenly went off again. “They’ll have no choice and they will send you to programming. Is that what you want?”

I slumped down further in the chair. Didn’t he realize I had already gone through every other possibility in my mind? At this rate, programming was inevitable. It was a miracle I hadn’t been sent already.

Would it be so bad? Compared to this?

I was so tired.

“Hey,” he pleaded. He had an odd hitch in his voice. “Do you want them to take you away?”

Away from him? The room went cold. I felt the goosebumps prickle across my skin. I risked a glance and saw none of anger or disappointment I expected. He looked stricken. Scared. It was like a punch in the gut, seeing so plainly on his face how scared he was.

That almost snapped me out of it. I remembered other “troubled citizens” who’d come back from the programming facility, all compliance and blank-eyed smiles.

The horrible pile of pills was still there, waiting.

“I can’t,” I said miserably, trying to keep my voice from cracking and failing. “Not again. You should go.”

He stared at me.

“You should,” I insisted.

It was a lie. I didn’t mean it. All I wanted was for him to stay, to do something, anything, even if it was just lying right back to me and telling me everything was going to be okay until I believed it. But I couldn’t say that. I’d die before I dragged him down with me for this.

We looked at each other, across the room.

Then I saw it happen. The sudden fire in his eyes. The shift in stance, the set of his jaw, like he had just had an epiphany. No, more like the smoldering, secret spark of something he’d known for a long time had burst into flames.

And I knew what he was thinking.

I started up and for a heartbeat I could believe all the stories – not the horror stories about terrorists and wastelands and lethal radiation, but the ones that were whispered even quieter, stories about a blue sky and stars and music and freedom – and it hit me so strong I couldn’t breath and I hoped desperately he would just _know_ , because I had no words for how I wanted the impossible too, more than anything.

A smile flickered across my brother’s face and an unfamiliar emotion twisted briefly in my chest. It was a smile I’d never seen before, somehow sad and fond and glinting with a dangerous energy all at once.

In a swift, decisive movement, he crossed to the counter and swept the meds into his own pocket. “Keep your head down,” he told me, quiet and fierce. “I gotta talk to some people, I gotta find somebody…” He gripped my shoulder. His hazel eyes, alight with that fire, bored into mine. “It won’t be long.”

He squeezed my shoulder again, a promise, and was gone.

And the nurses were back. I sat frozen, heart racing painfully. _There, isn’t that better_ , they were saying soothingly, _you should be more like your brother, you know_. But I barely heard them, even though they were prodding and poking him and shining lights in my eyes…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh I AGONIZED over this chapter because I didn't. Want. To put. Their. Names. In. But I just couldn't get around it without forever annoyingly referring to them as "his brother" and "the taller one" and so on.  
> EDIT: muahaha, i finally figured out I could fix this by making it first person (duh). Don't know if it improves anything or not, but at least their weird "old" names are gone now. Whew, this had been bugging me forever. Holla if you preferred the old version but otherwise I think I'll leave it this way.


	5. Kobra

The sun glared down on him, unforgiving. Kobra winced.

Had Party loved him in the city, at least? Was his concern a mere duty, even then? Had Party _ever_ loved him? Did he even consider him family anymore, or had the brother he knew died back there, leaving behind only the hateful, empty shell he found in the dark? Had that side of him been there all along, the raw savagery he’d seen in every brushstroke?

What…what had he done? To make Party secretly hate him so much? When had it started, this _resentment_ he could only find one outlet for?

He was so blind. Party Poison wasn’t the person he’d known back there, how could he have not seen that. How could he have dared to assume he knew him? How _disgusted_ Party must be from all those years, dragging a liability like himross the desert because blood may not be thicker than water but it wasn’t thinner, either. Having to look out for him. Keep him out of danger. Tolerating him tagging along everywhere like the contemptable bratty kid brother he was, weighing him down, holding him back, almost getting him killed, again and again Party would do his duty if it killed him and never let on what a burden Kobra was on his life, his sanity. He would never, never say a word. And that was who Party was, he was a good person, but he was only human and there must be only so much he could stomach before he…

His head was throbbing. He reached for his canteen, which wasn’t there. Of course not.

Mechanically, Kobra got to his feet and swung a leg back over his motorcycle. Started driving. He didn’t turn the bike around.


	6. Party

Party threw himself into random projects all morning, determined to distract himself until Kobra returned. All he’d succeeded in doing was destroying things around the diner, being a jerk to Jet, and getting into a yelling match with Ghoul. The two of them finally had enough; Ghoul dragged Jet outside to make him help with something explody, and Jet actually let him.

Now it must’ve been well past noon. Party had given up working on anything a good hour ago. He shut off the infernal commotion on the radio and slumped in a booth chewing his thumbnail, staring at nothing.

He should have been back by now. He’d always been one to wander off, but not for long. Never this long.

He couldn’t ignore the screaming in his head anymore.

Party jumped up and went into the kitchen. After clattering around for a few minutes he emerged with an armful of water and food.

He didn’t know how on Destroya’s dry earth he would find him. He didn’t know what he would say to him if he did. But he’d never forgive himself if something happened to him because of –

“Whatcha doin’?”

Party almost dropped his supplies. The Girl blinked up at him expectantly.

“Ah. Um. A thing.” He dumped everything onto a table so he could strap his gun to his hip.

“Shotgun!” The Girl tried to bounce happily past him to grab her own canteen.

Party stopped her. “Not this time, baby girl.”

“But what about buddies?”

“Oh.” Party vaguely remembered that conversation. _No, young lady, you may NOT_ _go to the mailbox by yourself, especially without telling anyone, ESPECIALLY_ _when there’s PATROLS OUT._   “Uh, it’s fine, I gotta go this one solo, it’s complica…”

The Girl squinched her eyes at him suspiciously. “You made _me_ promise.”

Party hastily gathered up his things again. “Uh, I meant, Kobra’s the buddy. Yeah. I’m going to meet him, okay? Be back soon.” He made a quick exit before she could ask him any more questions, or rat him out to Jet for taking the car.


	7. Kobra

There was a reason they never came out this way. There was nothing here. Nothing at all.

The hours passed in a dusty, heat mirage blur. At some point he’d had to abandon his bike with an empty tank. Without water, a few miles on foot after that nearly wiped him out.

Good thing he’d noticed the ravine. There was a shallow spot to climb down, and a bit of not-too-muddy water at the bottom. There wasn’t much of it and tasted like, well, dirt, but it was enough to go on.

He didn’t have anything to put water in, either, so he kept walking along the bottom. The further he went the steeper the walls got on either side, making it impossible to climb out to check for landmarks or danger. The back of his neck prickled. An easy target in such a narrow space. There wasn’t any sign of dracs, but that was when they jumped you.

The sun was making black dots dance in front of his eyes, or maybe it was hunger. He was trying to stay alert of his surroundings purely from habit, forcing himself to do a spot check every few minutes. Or whenever he thought of it, at least. He plodded on doggedly. It didn’t really matter.


	8. Party

There were some days that even this desert seemed too small. Today was not one of those days.

Party pulled onto the old highway in the opposite direction of the city, toward the outer zones. Gah. Witch help him, where should he even look?

That was the thing about Kobra. He didn’t have any particular haunts like the others did. He was unpredictable, liked to get himself lost, even though his sense of direction was too good for him to ever stay that way for long.

He hated this.

His best bet was to just drive. Maybe run into someone who’d seen him passing through.

But an hour later he still hadn’t seen a soul, not even a drac. Just a bunch of cacti. And that weird thing lying next to the road.

He slammed the brakes, got out, and ran over to it with a sinking feeling.

Kobra’s bike. There was a note pinned under a rock on the seat, in his brother’s unmistakable scrawl with his cobra sketch: _No._

Which, as anyone in the zones who had heard of him would know, was the equivalent of _If you so much as touch this bike the Kobra Kid will personally hunt you down and punch your face, or probably somewhere else much more painful, into next Tuesday._

He glanced at the gas gauge and sat back on his heels. Kobra would try to come back for it, wouldn’t he? Should he wait for him here?

Party didn’t know this part of the zones. Who knew how far away the nearest station was.

He scanned the surrounding area for tracks, for any clue as to which way he went, knowing he wouldn’t find any. The ground was already hardened from the heat since the final storm.

He got back in the car and kept driving. At least he was on the right track. Kobra would have kept following the road, right? Unless he was low on water. Kobra was smart, he’d head for lower ground where it collected. The terrain was more solid dirt than loose sand here, so the trans am would do okay.

He eased off the highway and headed down the slight decline, scanning the landscape for any sign of –

Cliff! Party swerved, skidding away from the steep drop by a few yards. Heart thudding, with some effort he relaxed his death grip on the wheel. Well, he was looking for low ground.

Party drove along the edge for a while, the car bumping and scraping a bit over the loose rocks. He winced. _Sorry, baby._

This was stupid. He shouldn’t have taken the trans am offroad. Kobra could be anywhere in the zones right now. He’d probably headed for Tommy’s or some other completely normal destination.

A pair of vultures gliding overhead caught his eye. He craned his head out the window. Was that a flash of red leather, down in the ravine? He hit the brakes and squinted out the window to get a better look.

Kobra. How did he get down there?

Party killed the engine, scrambled out of the car, and ran over to the edge. “K!”

Kobra’s head jerked up. “What’re you doing?” His voice was hoarse and cracked, but there was enough venom in it to kill.

“What do you think I’m doing? Come on, we’re going home.”

“Go away!”

“No. Get up here.”

“Can’t.”

Party knelt down at the brink, sending pebbles bouncing down the cliff face. “How’d you get down?”

“Just get away!” Kobra started backing up further down the ravine.

“I’m not leaving you here!” Party insisted, even though his brother was gesturing at him furiously.

“ _No_. Get _back!_ ”

Too late he felt the rocks shift beneath him. “Oh motherf –”


	9. Kobra

The first time, they were barely more than city pups.

The zones were so wide and bright, somehow dusty and clean at the same time and it was so good, such a relief from the stale, sterile air of the city. Kobra still remembered the first time his brother laughed out loud, _really_ laughed – threw back his head and cackled helplessly over something stupid Kobra said and didn’t cut himself off or glance around afraid anyone had heard. The world was upside down and inside out, his brother was acting like a maniac and Kobra was so happy for him, that he was finally free to unleash all that pent up energy and creativity, though he was secretly kind of intimidated by him, too.

How arrogantly they boasted about their wild plans to annihilate BL/Ind when they arrived, when they stumbled into their first wave of concerts and parties and plunged right in, still high from their escape. The desert was one celebration after the next, full of makeshift amphitheaters and bars and fireworks and music they could have only imagined in their previous life. Party Poison wasn’t made for the desert; the whole desert was made for Party Poison. Kobra, swept along by it all, used to think the same was true for himself. It was straight out of the legends juvie halls whispered to each other over trashcan fires in the outskirts. They were superheroes. They were unstoppable.

And then somehow it was just the two of them, sunburned, stranded with a flat on their way to a roller derby in the still-unpainted trans am Party had won in a bet the day before.

It was Kobra who saw the first one. His mind went blank and his brother’s old name burst out of his mouth, hoarse with fear. Party froze and Kobra fumbled for his gun and somehow got off the shot in time and Party snapped into action and the rest of it was a blur.

To this day he didn’t know whether it was the Witch’s blessing or sheer luck or something else that they survived. When it was over they were somehow both still standing, the stench of charred flesh and melted rubber masks hanging in the dusty air.

Feeling hollow and shaky and suddenly very, very young, Kobra wanted so desperately to say that name again, to assure himself nothing had changed. From across the corpses littering the ground between them, he met his brother’s shattered eyes and saw his own changed face reflected in them and the word caught in his throat. Party went over and grabbed him by the neck and pulled him down into a fierce hug, and Kobra couldn’t tell if it was Party trembling, or him, or both.

They were really killjoys now. Blood on their hands, justified or not. No rewind. No cut back to the scene where they were heroes, brave and carefree and invincible.

Kobra buried his face in his brother’s shoulder, breathing in the unfamiliar scent of leather and hair dye and trying to forget how Party had stood there when he screamed that name. Just looked at him, blank, uncomprehending. Like he had already forgotten.

Unwilling to let each other go, somehow they eventually ended up huddled back to back in the backseat of the car with their guns clutched tight to their chests. As the night dragged on, exhaustion finally overcame fear and they fell into uneasy sleep.

That was where a broad-shouldered desertborn with a kind face and an incredible amount of curly hair found them the next day and offered them water and a lift to the nearest Dead Pegasus. But that was the beginning of another story, and one of the last few clear memories he had for a long time after that.

He never thought of Party with that old name again.


	10. Kobra

“Party!” Kobra shouted, and got a lungful of dust. Coughing, head ringing, he stumbled over the rubble. There was dust everywhere, he couldn’t see anything, _he_ _couldn’t see him_ –

The horrible cracking and rumbling stopped. A few last rocks skittered down.

“Party!”

A faint sound led him in the right direction and he almost tripped over him.

He was sprawled on his back – mostly on top of the rocks, thank goodness – and he was conscious but breathing in rapid, shallow gasps. Kobra brushed the debris off him and scanned him frantically for injuries, even though Party flapped an annoyed hand at him feebly for him to get off. No limbs at a weird angle, good, scrapes and cuts but no gaping wounds, good. Kobra pulled his own jacket off to tuck under Party’s head and sat with him as the dust settled around them, waiting for him to get his wind back.

“Ow,” Party managed at last. He tried to laugh, but it turned into a wincing cough. “That hurt.”

“Okay?”

Party wiggled his feet experimentally. “Think so. More of a slide than a fall, really.”

“We should move, if you can.” Kobra glanced nervously at the cliff. “Could still be unstable.” He grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. He was covered in scrapes and dust from head to toe. Kobra guessed he looked similar. In a different situation it might have been comical.

Party checked his own limbs as if he was surprised to still be in one piece. “Ha! Nine lives, suckas.” He held up his palm and Kobra slapped it automatically.

Then he remembered. “Let’s go,” he said shortly, scooping up his jacket, and led the way further down the ravine.

Party noticed a glimmer on the ground and picked up Kobra’s sunglasses, scratched but miraculously not broken. He quickened his strides to catch up with Kobra. “You dropped these.”

 

_The door slammed open, making Kobra jump. Huddled in his corner, he squinted at the sudden painful brightness spilling from the doorway._

Bro, lookee, look. _Party was suddenly in front of him, holding something out. He looked so pleased with himself Kobra almost smiled._ For you.

_It was a pair of black plastic sunglasses. Kobra stared blankly at them._ What for?

For your eyes, for the light! _When Kobra didn’t move to take them, Party pressed them eagerly into his hands._ Try ‘em on!

_So he did. And Party wasn’t wrong – it_ was _calming, somehow. A little. Kobra looked past him to the doorway. It didn’t look too bright out, anymore. Not like he would vanish altogether if he stepped into the sun…_

 

What had Party been thinking, back then? Why had he bothered? Still, Kobra took them and slid them back on.  He’d collected several pairs since, but these were still the best ones.

Behind him, Party kept rambling. “Let’s look for a shallower spot, we can get out and double back. The car’s just up there. Oh. With the food and water. Shiny.” There was a pause. “Oh, here!” He thrust the canteen from his belt at him.

Before he could stop himself, Kobra snatched it and drank gratefully. It was still cool, even. He forced himself to stop before he drained it.

Party was openly studying him. “Jeez, man. You look like roadkill.”

Kobra flinched away from the open concern on his face. “So do you.”

Party let it drop, and they walked on in uncomfortable silence.

The valley was only getting deeper. Kobra toyed absently with the idea that it’d be shorter for them to turn around and get out where he’d climbed down at first, a few miles in the opposite direction. There was a reason that wouldn’t work. Oh yeah, the rubble was blocking the way. His head was pounding again. He put his hand up and felt the throbbing bump on his temple. Had one of the rocks hit him? Funny he hadn’t noticed til now. The adrenaline rush must be wearing off. His boots were so heavy. One more step. Two more steps. He stuck his hand out against the ravine wall to steady himself. Party was saying something now, _we gotta talk, man, I gotta tell you…_ his ears were ringing too loud for him to make out any more.


	11. Party

Party made a grab for Kobra as he stumbled. “Whoa, take it easy.” Kobra took a few more steps and went limp. “Aw, dude. C’mon.” He hastily ducked his head under Kobra’s arm and shifted his weight to keep him from falling, and ended up scooping him up off the ground completely. He glanced around and let out a little growl of frustration. Shiny.

He cursed himself silently. They were trapped and alone and they were going to die and it was all his fault.

_Come_ on _, Party. If you get him out of here,_ then _you can spend every waking moment regretting everything you’ve ever done._

He squinted at the sky. “Eff off,” he told the circling vultures. “Not on my watch.” It’d be getting dark soon. Double shiny. The heat was letting up a bit, at least.

He ended up carrying Kobra quite a ways, looking for a place to set him that wasn’t sharp rocks or mud. It was hardly an effort. He was all skin and bones under that bulky jacket. When had he gotten so light?

At last he came to a sort of dry, level spot and eased his brother down. Poor kid. Rough day. Party pulled off Kobra’s sunglasses and patted his face sharply, but he stayed out cold. That was a nasty looking bump on his forehead. And the skin on his hands was torn and red, not just his palms the way you’d get from climbing down the rocks, the backs and wrists too. What happened to him?

Party poured a little water in his mouth, but that didn’t rouse him either. At a loss for what else to do, he bandaged his head best he could with the bandana from around his neck.

What next. Sticks. Build a fire, Jet had drilled into them a long time ago. Number one rule for surviving the desert at night without shelter. And it looked like they might be stuck out here a while.

The rains had washed all sorts of brush and debris down into the valley. After a while, he managed to scavenge a large-ish armful of wood. He was digging around in his pockets for a lighter when he noticed Kobra watching him.

Party quickly hid his relief, not wanting to worry him. “Hey,” he said casually.

Kobra made a noncommittal sound, reaching up to feel his head. He pulled Party’s bandana off and examined it with a frown. Then he would have pushed himself up on his elbow, but Party hurried over and put a hand on his chest to keep him there. “Stay. Here.” He offered what was left of the water. When Kobra hesitated, he added, “There’s plenty down here, just gotta filter it. Finish this up.” He neglected to mention the filter was back at the car.

Kobra let him tip it all into his mouth. Party gave him a pat and went back to his woodpile.

A few minutes later he had a decent fire going. Party plopped down beside it.

Across the fire Kobra shifted, experimentally at first, and slowly sat up.

The sun dipped down behind the cliffs. The moon was up, its silver light playing with the orange firelight in the rising smoke. Kobra began intently picking at the drying mud on his boot.

“For Destroya’s sake,” Party said. “What were you doing out here?”

“I was doing,” Kobra shot back, “just fine. Til you came along!” He winced like raising his voice hurt his head. “What sick game are you playing, Party? You hate me.”

He said it so tiredly, so matter-of-fact. That hurt worse than if he had said it with any resentment or anger. Somewhere in the distance a coyote howled.

“ _No_ ,” Party managed finally. “No. I don’t. How could you ever – why would you think –? Don’t answer that.” Nonononono. “You…please. You gotta let me explain.”

Kobra’s face was unreadable and somehow vulnerable at the same time, blank but fragile like it could twist into rage or despair at any moment. Party had to look away. He tried to keep his voice steady, but the words jumbled together. “I never meant for you to see them. What you saw, I – I’ve got to do it, K, understand? I have these – ”

“Alright!” Kobra lurched to his feet. The fire-shadows flickered darkly across his face. “Don’t. I get it. I should’ve seen it sooner. It’s okay, I’m sorry.”

“No, _listen_ –”

“Shut up!” Kobra shouted raggedly. “You said enough. I don’t even know you!”

His outburst was so loud it bounced off the ravine walls, dozens of accusing echoes.

They stared at each other across the flames. Party, half reaching toward him. Kobra, trembling at the edge of the firelight.

That was when they heard it.


	12. Party

What in Destroya’s name?

Party thought it was thunder at first, but it didn’t stop. The dull, steady roar was growing louder and louder. Getting closer…

_Oh_.

They had to get out of there. Party whipped his head around, taking in their surroundings. “Can you climb?”

Kobra stood there, shivering. Uncomprehending.

“Flash flood, go, _move!_ ” He grabbed Kobra by the arm and hauled him to the nearest boulder. He practically threw him up onto it and scrambled after him. In the moonlight Party could make it out now – the wall of swirling, muddy water hurtling toward them.

Party scrabbled upward, clawing for handholds. “Come on!” He risked a glance down.

Kobra had lifted his hands to the rocks like he was going to climb, but he hadn’t. Just knocked his forehead gently against the cliff face and left it there. Like he was too tired to move at all. And for one horrible second Party thought he wasn’t going to.

Then he straightened up and started pulling himself onto the first ledge.

Party let out a breath. “ _Hurry_ , K!” he called over his shoulder and focused his attention on his crumbling handholds. It was getting steeper.

Kobra muttered something. ~~~~

“What?” Party hollered down.

 “I said – you can stop – pretending – to care!” Kobra shouted, struggling to get a foothold.

“I care, moron, just climb!” Party could see the top now. Two armlengths away. Shoulders burning, he scrabbled for the next rock up. There. His fingers found the edge. He hauled himself over the top and sprawled on his back thankfully.

“Don’t lie to me! I know you want me dead!”

Seriously? Okay, Kobra was upset, but he didn’t have to get so dark and dramatic about it. Ignoring his screaming muscles, Party rolled over onto all fours with a groan and looked over the brink.

Kobra had gotten to a narrow outcrop off to one side. He sagged against the cliff, gasping for breath. “Great place for it. No witnesses.”

“K, stop.”

“What a tragic accident. How about I just let go? Would that make you happy?”

“Kobra!” Party burst out, sickened. That was taking it too far. “What’s wrong with you!”

The floodwater reached the ravine bed, hurtling past a loud, swirling mass of mud and debris. The tiny, flickering orange light of their campfire winked out and was swept away.

Kobra was so close. If they both reached…

Party threw himself down on the edge. “Here.” A few rocks came loose and Kobra faltered; Party’s arm shot out instinctively. “Alright?”

“Shiny, I’m just rad!” Kobra didn’t budge.

 “It’s gonna break, come on! Don’t make me come back down there!” he threatened, but it sounded more like begging. That outcrop was going to snap off any second, he knew it. What was Kobra doing? Had the height gotten to him? “Gimme your hand right now and stop being a little…”

Kobra wasn’t listening. He was watching the dark water thundering beneath him, far below his feet.

Party’s stomach lurched. “K, don’t look down, look at me! _Look at me!_ ”

Kobra didn’t move. At his most stubborn, Kobra wouldn’t be moved by all the emotional pleas in the world.

Fine. Two could play the dark humor game.

“It’s not far enough, K,” Party said. “You’ll just hurt yourself.”

No response.

Okay, this was the worse. Party fought to keep his voice neutral. “I already tried it this afternoon, remember? Didn’t work out so hot.”

Kobra craned his head up to look at him. His face was a mask.

And he resumed his climb, like nothing happened. Then almost immediately he was within reach and Party dragged him up bodily and the minute he was over the edge Party was punching him in the shoulder, shaking him. “Not! Funny! What kinda dirty joke was that, huh? What _was_ that!”

It was like trying to shake a ragdoll. Kobra didn’t resist him, too exhausted to even flinch. Party let him go. “Don’t do that again, you hear? Don’t do any of it! Pulling stunts like, like this _?_ Wandering out into the middle of nowhere by yourself? Without _water?_ ”

Kobra sat quietly where Party had dropped him, panting, hands spread in the dirt on either side of him like he didn’t quite believe he was on solid ground.

Party sank down beside him. “Okay. Okay,” he said. “I deserved it. But you don’t, alright? It could’ve broke, you could’ve died!”

Kobra gave him an unreadable look.

“It was just the dreams – please listen, just a minute, please – it was just the dreams,” Party rushed on, unable to stop, the words ripping out of his chest, “and I _hate_ it, I hate every minute of it, every brushstroke, but it stops them, it captures them, traps them, I don’t know! I never have the same one twice, after. It, it… keeps them from coming true. Keeps them from coming back.”

He risked a glance at Kobra and dropped his head onto his arms. “You don’t get it. They don’t let me go until I do.” His muffled voice came out small, anguished. “But they always find more ways for you to die...”

Over the sound of the rushing water he could hear thunder now, far away.

Kobra stayed quiet for a long time. Then: “You don’t hate me?”

“No!”

“Why?”

Party blanked. What kind of question…?

A rare sound sent a chill through him. Kobra was laughing softly.

“You should,” Kobra said. He got to his feet. “Car should be close.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Party really is oblivious smh


	13. Then

_You should_ , Kobra said. _You should…_

“You should go,” my little brother told me, betraying no emotion.

I knew my brother better than anyone, and he was still largely a mystery to me. He would be normal one day – just his sweet, dorky self – and the next day a rebellious, uncontrollable wreck for no reason. Or worse, acting dull and half-dead and speaking in monosyllables if at all. It’d gotten more frequent the past year, and it made me sick to think about the doctors constantly switching and increasing his medications. It made sense now, they were trying to stabilize him so he would quality for their stupid program, but it seemed to be making it worse.

He had known for a year. And hadn’t told me.

What had they seen in his eval?

It was rare to be considered – an honor, even – but my blood ran cold. What would they do to him in there? What had they already been doing to him? How much longer could he keep fighting the side effects of whatever they were trying on him, the black moods, the violent outbursts? How far could he go before the doctors gave up on him?

“You should,” he repeated, jarring me back to the moment.

His eyes were somehow both exhausted and desperate, pleading, on the brink of snapping or giving up – and I suddenly understood, at least in part, what he had been doing, whether he realized it himself or not.

He would do anything. Even this subconscious self-destruction.

If only I could tell him. If only I could admit how, how _restless_ I’d felt too, for years, underneath all the smiling and doing exactly what I was told, how it was all just so they would leave me alone. How the itch under my skin drove me to spend countless stolen hours locked in my room, sketching feverishly with greyish school pencils, leaf after leaf of paper before burning it all so no one would find it. How I dreamed in colors I’d never seen and it was slowly driving me mad. I had to hide it from him, or I’d  get us both into more trouble than I could get us back out of.

I could see finally, clear as glass, what Bl/Ind was doing to him. To both of us. Making us turn against each other. Toying with my baby brother like a, a _lab rat_ , trying to turn him into some kind of weapon?

Screw. That. I felt the smile flash across my face before I could stop it, fragments of a wildly impossible plan racing through my mind.

We could just go. There had to be a way out, somehow. The fireflies, the juvie halls, someone on the outskirts had to know.

I stuffed the pills into my pocket and went over to my brother, gaze darting nervously to the door though I knew it was soundproof from having been on the other side of it far too often.

“Keep your head down. I gotta talk to some people, I gotta find somebody.” I put my hand on his shoulder, which made him flinch even though it was me, and that made me hate the nurses and this cold, white city even more than I already did.

I squeezed his shoulder again, more gently this time. “It won’t be long,” I promised. Then I swung the door open and shouldered past the nurses outside, through the pristine corridors, and straight out the big front doors.

My brother had looked at me in that moment like I was his last hope. Like I was a hero. My stride almost faltered under the sudden stab of dread that I could never live up to that look. I would never, ever deserve that look. But I knew I’d die trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Again, just popped in quick and got rid of the weird pre-killjoy name issue. yay.


	14. Party

And now he’d done exactly what he feared most. He couldn’t blame Kobra for shutting him out.

So he didn’t speak on the trek back to the trans am. Neither of them did.

The desert around them was blue-black and deadly still, the air metallic. The approaching thunderhead rumbled in the distance. They picked up their pace as much as their aching legs would bear.

They were both hanging on each other by the time they got to the car. Not that it meant anything. Kobra let go of Party and staggered to the side door, collapsing in the front passenger seat. He would have drained the canteen Party handed him if he hadn’t taken it away again.

“Not too fast, kid.” Party leaned back in the driver’s seat and took a careful sip from it.

The first fat raindrops started to hit the windshield. Too worn out to feel any elation at their escape, they wordlessly passed the canteen back and forth. They sat that way for a long time. When it was empty, they just sat.

Party stared out into black void. The rain was a steady drumming on the roof now. On his right, Kobra was curled up against the door. Lost in his own head again.

He was probably starving. Party dug around in the backseat and found two tins of…well, something. Beans, maybe. He pried them both open, gave Kobra one and dug into the other with the bent-up lid.

He was halfway through his when he realized Kobra was still sitting there. “What?”

Kobra looked away with a miniscule shake of his head.

For pete’s sake. “It’s not power pup,” Party snapped. “Eat.”

Kobra set his can down. Not defiantly. More like it was too heavy to hold on to. Party felt another stab of guilt.

“Just have a little, okay?” he said, more gently this time.

Kobra opened his mouth. Shut it again.

Then his face twisted and he crumpled in on himself, unable to stifle an ugly sob.

“Kobra,” went Party, horrified – and instantly, instinctively, he was scooting over to Kobra, scrambling awkwardly over the gear shift into the passenger seat where he fit fine because Kobra was wedged up as close to the door as he could get. One of Kobra’s hands clutched at his sleeve like a lifeline and Party bundled him close.

 “K,” he said into Kobra’s shoulder as Kobra started to really cry. “I didn’t know. Kobra, I’m sorry.” But Kobra was already fighting him, panicking, pushing him away. “Hey, hey, don’t,” Party tried to restrain his arms. “Come here, it’s okay.”

Kobra made a tiny, awful sound like a wounded animal and let Party pull him in, burying his face in Party’s chest.

This was bad, this was really bad. He’d never seen Kobra like this. Not even before. Party cradled the back of Kobra’s head. This couldn’t just be about the cliff, or what he saw last night, or even the rainy season that drove everyone a little mad. All the things he said, did he really think that? Everyone’s sense of humor got warped out here. Party didn’t even notice anymore. It’d never occurred to him how often Kobra might have been dead serious. How long had it been? How long had he been carrying it on his own?

When they left the city, Party plunged headlong into desert life, so drunk on the noise and color of it all he didn’t notice his brother was drowning in it. Deprived of years of sedatives and anti-whatevers and everything else, Kobra was wild as he was at first. Some time after that first clap Party had found him one morning still asleep, gun clutched to his chest like a security blanket. The next night he tried to take it away from him, but that sent Kobra into such a panic the only way Party could get him to calm down again was to give it back. That was the first sign he caught onto that something was wrong. After that, he stayed within arm’s reach when it got dark. _Promise you’ll wake me, promise_ , he'd insisted then, locking eyes with Kobra and gripping his shoulders until Kobra nodded enough to satisfy him. That was when he really noticed the other things for the first time, how Kobra wouldn’t go anywhere anymore, even to the motorcycle derbies he loved. Rarely ever slept for more than a few hours at a time. Became almost nocturnal. But gradually, things had gotten easier. They both started to adjust. Jet became a part of their lives, and Dr. D and Show Pony, then Fun and Cherri and finally the Girl, so naturally that it was like they’d always been there. Kobra nestled his way into everyone’s hearts and latched onto the Girl with such an earnest affection that Party couldn’t help smiling when he watched them together, and soon he had thrown himself into biking and martial arts and his books and years later of course Party still worried about him, because he was his baby brother, but it was the you-better-not-get-yourself-killed kind, not the you-better-not-let-yourself-die kind.

Maybe he hadn’t gotten as better as he seemed. Maybe he’d just gotten better at hiding it.

Party wrapped his arms tighter around Kobra. Kobra was tensing up, trying to regain control of himself. He fisted his hands in Party’s jacket and got in a few strangled gasps before breaking down again. Scared by his inability to stop, he sobbed so frantically then that Party wondered with alarm if he could breathe.

“Kobra, it’s okay,” he said into his brother’s hair, his own eyes stinging. The helpless way Kobra’s bony frame was shaking hurt so much he wished he wasn’t such an empath but he knew he deserved this, he deserved to feel all his pain after everything he put him through. For letting it get this bad again without noticing, for ignoring all the signs, for not being careful enough to keep him from seeing the…

All he could do now was shove that back into a mental safe labeled To Think About Never and pray he could hold Kobra tight enough that somehow it would keep him from shattering completely.

So he tried. “I’m here. I’m right here. I see you,” was all he could say. He rocked him gently and just held on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most cliche setting for A Good Cry ever, but what better place to do it? Goals tbh


	15. Party

However much longer later, he had no idea, Kobra stopped shivering. Gradually, his breathing gradually began to steady. Party kissed the top of his blond head. “Why didn’t you tell me.”

“It’s not _words_ ,” Kobra choked out, muffled in Party’s jacket. One last sob escaped him and he fell quiet, going limp against him. When he spoke again, his voice was just dull and flat and exhausted. “I can ignore it sometimes. When it’s quieter. But it never stops. It never, ever stops and I’m _tired_.”

Party felt his shoulders slump and hugged him more fiercely. “We’re brothers, dammit.” He pressed another kiss to his hair. “That’s what I’m for. I can never tell when you’re joking, you gotta say something,” he pleaded. “It won’t bother me, I promise. You’re not a bother and I’ve never lied to you, K, never once in my life. When’ve I ever done anything but try to protect you?”

Kobra said shakily, “Once you pushed me off that sand dune in Pony’s infernal contrap –”

“That was one time!” Party said.

Kobra let out a hysterical sound, almost a laugh. He let go of Party’s damp shirt and Party shifted a bit to let him sit up. Kobra turned away and rubbed at his swollen eyes with his sleeve.

Party reached behind to the backseat and fished around for another of the canteens he brought. “Should’ve thought to bring coffee,” he apologized, trying to lighten the mood. “No wonder you’re a wreck.”

Kobra didn’t smile. He obediently drank the water Party gave him.

He should really eat something, too. Party found Kobra’s tin of food and took a bite, then handed it to him like he’d done with the canteen earlier. Kobra looked at it tiredly, but he had a bite too before giving it back. That worked pretty well, so they passed it between them. When it was gone, Kobra dropped his head against the window again. He didn’t shut his eyes.

They were still curled up against each other in the passenger seat. Party didn’t move back over. In here it was dry, and it wasn’t too cold, and if he tried to drive in this he’d probably get them both killed anyway. They could go back in the morning when it let up.

After a while, Kobra moved restlessly with the faintest whimper.

“Okay?”

“Head hurts.” He shifted away from the window to lean on Party’s shoulder instead.

Party trailed his fingers absently through Kobra’s dusty hair and listened to the rain. Tonight, they were okay. His other arm behind Kobra was falling asleep and so was the foot tucked under him, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all.


	16. Kobra

In and out of fitful sleep, Kobra wandered through vague, disturbing dreams that for once, thankfully, he couldn’t really remember. He half-woke sometimes when voices drifted through the fog. _You forgot the buddy rule._ A disapproving little voice. _Um…sorry?_ he might have mumbled back. The what rule? He must have missed something. Tiny hands, patting something wet and cold to his face… A spoon with something hot on it, prodding at his mouth, a different voice. _Eat it, Kobra, it’s good for you, it’s got vitamins or whatever. Don’t make me hold your nose because I will do it_ …A shadowy figure looming over him, tucking a blanket around his shoulders…

It was cool and dark when he opened his eyes. He was alone in one of the back rooms at the diner, on the bare mattress he rarely used. There was a glass on the floor, empty.

Kobra watched the ceiling fan go around for a while, wondering if he was really awake. Besides its whirring, everything was quiet. What time was it, three, four in the morning?

Someone was mad at him. He remembered that much. No, not anymore. Kobra examined his scratched hands and tried to think.

Then it all rushed back – their fight, the ravine, the flash flood. Clinging to that chalky cliff and almost getting sucked in by the magnetic pull of the dark water rushing below and how weirdly, wrongly peaceful the unending roar of it was. His brother’s confession. The rainstorm. Breaking down in front of Party like a total pansy. Party, after every horrible thing Kobra accused him of and with every right in the world to tell him to suck it up and stop being a whiny brat, not saying a word of blame. Just holding him, rocking him. Like he was a little kid again.

Ugh. If Party hadn’t despised him before, surely he did now.

No, that wasn’t right, he knew to the depths of his soul Party loved him, more than Party loved himself, so much more than Party loved himself – how could Kobra ever have assumed something so awful? How could he have been so quickly willing to believe the worst, let his faith in Party be so easily shaken?

Never once had it crossed his mind that terrifying room was the work of a tormented mind desperately trying to hold on to sanity. He tried not to picture Party in the dark, alone, so tangled in the nightmares he could only find one way out…

It wasn’t the thought of the paintings that made him sick anymore. It was Party’s haunted eyes as he had pleaded with him on that clifftop, trying to explain, begging him to understand. Kobra, desperately trying to make sense of his distraught outburst, unable to reconcile it with the black world his head had created, hadn’t done a thing. Remembering the raw distress on Party’s face made his stomach hurt.

After that firefight when it hit Kobra, hard, Party kept right going like he was determined to forget it ever happened. He never had it as bad, or if he had it probably just mingled with the hangovers. Party was untouchable, crackling with some kind of inner electricity Kobra couldn’t access, and after a few exhausting, nerve-wrecking weeks he stopped trying to keep up with him.

But Party hadn't let him fall behind. He was the one who pulled him out of it. Every scrape they’d gotten through together, every little sacrifice Party made,  every time Party had his back – every memory his hellish brain tried to twist into something awful – all of it had been, in Party’s imperfect way, the only way he knew to love him. To keep him safe.

Kobra stood and padded into the hallway.

There was light seeping through the crack of the broom closet door again. He tried the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. Of course not.

He was still standing there when the door swung open from the inside.

Party didn’t look surprised to see him. He was sitting cross-legged amid the clutter with a familiar canvas stretched out in front of him on the floor. He looked so old in the dingy light of the single bulb overhead, face drawn with fatigue, like all the emotion had been wrung out of him. With a little tilt of his head he beckoned Kobra in and scooted over so there was room. Kobra sat down beside him. A dustpan dug into his back.

 “It’s not finished,” Party said.

Kobra leaned over to study the painting. The lines was angrily, messily slashed, unsteady and emotional. It was no less gruesome than he remembered, but it wasn’t horrifying anymore. Just sad.

“Needs a bit more blood, there,” he agreed solemnly.

Silence.

Then Party let out a hoot that sputtered into a hysterical giggle. The whole thing was too absurd to do anything else. It was infectious – Kobra felt a smile crack over his own face and couldn’t bite back a quiet huff of laughter himself.

“You didn’t talk to me either,” Kobra said at last, when Party’s chuckles had petered out.

“I _couldn’t!_ I’m not crazy, I promise, it has nothing to do with you!” Party’s voice escalated. “I have to get them out of my head somehow or I _will_ go crazy. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

 “What exactly about _this_ –” Kobra gestured frustratedly at the walls – “is “fine”?”

“I told you, it keeps them from – ”

Kobra took a breath. “No.”

“What?”

“Don’t give me that tortured artist BS.”

“Kob –”

“ _You’re my brother too!”_

Party, startled, stared at him for two seconds. Then he sort of reached out like he was going to put his hand on Kobra’s arm, but it was covered in paint. He stopped short and dropped it back onto his lap. His voice was hoarse. “I tried so hard to keep it away from you…I can’t put you through more than I already have. I’d never ask.  You know I wouldn’t.”

All the anger drained out of Kobra again. “I’d listen. If it helped. I’d rather know, Party, than…” Than find him here like this again.

 Party sighed. “The first one…it had me for _weeks_ like some kind of, of evil poltergeist and there was nothing I could…and I was trying to work on something one night and it just happened and it was awful but then it left me alone. I thought they were gone. But they kept coming, and I couldn’t help but think, maybe they were…sent to me, you know? That I could somehow keep it from happening? And nothing else was making it any better and Witch help me, it was the only thing I could do.”

Sounded awful. “That sucks.”

Party misunderstood. “I know, sounds stupid now. Saying it out loud.”

“I meant – well no yeah, it is stupid. I get it though. And I was so self-absorbed all this time you had to resort to –” He abandoned that sentence and started over. “And I should’ve heard you out, I should’ve believed you. It wouldn’t let me….and – and I couldn’t –”

Then Party’s arm was around his shoulders, hand at an awkward angle to keep paint from getting on his shirt. Comforting him again, when Kobra should’ve been trying to comfort him. “Don’t.”

“Should’ve got rid of me when you had the chance,” Kobra found himself saying. “I’m a liability, you know.” He was only half-joking.

But Party had apparently had enough of his BS, too. “We’re all liabilities. You’re not special.”

That shut him up.

“You know it’s true.” Party dragged a hand down his face, forgetting about the paint. “Ugh. I was such a jerk yesterday. Kobra…” he hesitated. “Is it always… _bad_ bad?”

Kobra sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

“Sometimes,” he said.

Party’s arm tighten around him. Great, now he was never going to let him out of his sight.

 “You’re gonna be okay, alright? We’ll figure it out,” Party said carefully. “You could always, maybe, you know, try something? It could help a lot–”

“No! No.” Kobra fought the urge to gag. Was he suggesting–

 “Calm down!”  Party said in his most infuriatingly reasonable voice. “Listen, we eat their food, we use their guns –”

“Not the point!”

“You’re _sick_ , Kobra!”

“Then so are you!”

“No, I just make terrible life choices!”

Kobra wrapped his arms around his knees. “Not. The point.”

Party let his head fall back against the wall with an audible thunk. “I wouldn’t’ve said anything if – K, I’d die myself before I let anything happen but I can’t…fix it. I can’t fix you.” His voice sounded weird, like he was trying not to cry. “Witch knows I would. Just think about it. Okay?”

He was trying to help, but he really didn’t get it. Kobra gave him a one-shoulder shrug.

Party ruffled up his own hair as if to shake off all the tension in the tiny space. “Ugh. This sucks.”

“Yeah.” Kobra glanced around at the walls. That was an understatement.

“Just paper.” Party said, tiredly. “After all.”

“Yeah.” Kobra said again.

Party sprang up, almost knocking a mop onto Kobra’s head. “Gimme a hand.” He started ripping paintings down.

 “In a minute.” Kobra found a charcoal pencil on the floor. Perfect. He pulled the canvas over to him.

He scribbled sunglasses and a double thumbs up onto the figure, and a speech bubble that said “SYKE, THE WITCH <3S ME” and held it up for Party’s approval.

Party shook his head, but he had to laugh. Which was what Kobra intended.

By the time they had collected them all and took them out back, the sun was peeking over the horizon. The cacti were in flower, carpeting the desert with colors.

They tossed their stacks into a heap. Party offered him the lighter but he shook his head, so Party knelt down to light the corner of one and stood back.

They watched the flames lick the pages, curling up the edges and slowly warping the gory images until they crumbled black. Kobra couldn’t help but feel, a little, like he was at his own funeral. Not in a bad way.

Minutes later only smoldering gray pile remained. The birds were singing in full force now, the cheerful lil freaks. There was a faint crash from the kitchen.

Party started kicking the ashes around, scattering them to mingle with the sand.

Kobra had never seen it before, that they both faced the same darkness, each of them the only way they knew how. He paced the edges of the night, trying in vain to avoid fighting it at all. Party fought alone in a world of paper armor he created, trapped in his own superstitions…

And now he was letting it go. For him. That was a fight all its own.

Maybe, sometimes, you had to switch tactics if you wanted to survive.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll think about it.”

Party looked up.

“Maybe you’re right. I dunno.” Kobra shrugged awkwardly.

Party let out a quiet breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You do that.”

Kobra glanced at him. The combination of Party’s serious face and the paint smudged on his nose was hilarious. Kobra’s mouth twitched.

Party narrowed his eyes at him. “What?”

“Nothin,’” Kobra said innocently, and turned to go inside.

The rest of them were clattering around the kitchen, scrounging for breakfast. The Girl was standing on the counter rummaging in the cabinets and Jet was poking dubiously at some vaguely oatmeal-like leftovers on the stove. Ghoul stuck his head out of his cubby, hair askew, dragging his blanket with him. He quickly scooted back when Kobra come in with Party following behind. They’d all learned early on to stay out of Kobra’s way first thing in the morning.

Kobra made a beeline for the coffee pot, filled up his favorite chipped mug, and wordlessly held it out to Party.

The diner went silent.

Even Party just stared, so Kobra set it down on the table for him and flipped off the others. The kitchen clatter hastily resumed. He slunk away to cuddle with the rest of the pot in his corner booth.

“Thanks,” Party said finally, sounding touched and oddly humbled. He took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp this is finally finished yEET


End file.
